Sant'Anna Festival

A village festival at the foot of Castello Colonna

The Sant'Anna Festival is one of the most cherished events of the summer in Patrica, a small town in the province of Frosinone, in the heart of the Ciociaria region and the Lazio Region. It does not take place in the perched historic center, but further down, in Tomacella, the hamlet that stretches at the foot of the village and houses a small church dedicated to Saint Anne, just a few steps from the Castello Colonna, which grew around a 14th-century tower.

It is a community festival in the most authentic sense of the term: it stems from the liturgical calendar—Saint Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary, is celebrated on July 26th—and expands over two days into a gathering point for the hamlet's families, those who have returned to the village for the holidays, and visitors from neighboring towns.

Devotion and conviviality

The religious thread remains the heart of the event. As in many parishes in the diocese of Frosinone, the days leading up to the anniversary are marked by the recitation of the rosary and Eucharistic celebrations, followed on the day of the festival by the most attended moment of popular devotion.

Around this core, the convivial aspect has developed over the years: food stalls open in the late afternoon, when the heat of the day begins to fade, offering dishes of Ciociarian cuisine in a festival style, served at outdoor tables. It is the classic formula of a Lazio village festival, where you eat elbow-to-elbow with your table neighbors and the evening naturally slides toward music.

Dance nights

The second part of each evening is dedicated to dancing and live music. In 2025, the first night was enlivened by a dance party with ValeMusic, while the second featured Luis Navarro with his musical repertoire: ballroom dancing, group dances, Italian hits, and Latin-American music, the typical soundtrack of summer squares in Central Italy. It is entertainment designed for all ages, where children run between the tables while couples occupy the dance floor until late at night.

Part of the Estate Patricana

The Sant'Anna Festival is not an isolated event: it is one of the stops on the Estate Patricana, the summer calendar that the Municipality of Patrica builds every year from late June to September. A deliberately heterogeneous program that brings together live concerts, art installations, nature excursions, shows, photography exhibitions, food festivals, and events linked to local agricultural traditions, with a strong focus on local artists and the involvement of village associations.

The same calendar includes other highlights of the Patrician summer, such as the Notti Bianche (White Nights) with street food and the Borgo in Musica festival in mid-August in the historic center, up to the patron saint's feast of San Rocco on August 16th. The Sant'Anna Festival occupies the late July slot in this mosaic and is the hamlet's festival, the one that brings the atmosphere of the village down to the plains.

Why it's worth the trip

• A genuine, non-touristy event where you can breathe the real life of a Ciociarian community
• Local cuisine at festival prices, served under the stars
• The setting of the Castello Colonna and the hills of the Lepini Mountains
• Free entry and family-friendly atmosphere
• Easy to combine with a visit to the historic center of Patrica, one of the panoramic balconies of the Sacco Valley

Visitors from outside the region thus discover a piece of Lazio that is little beaten by tourist circuits: the Ciociaria of the hilltop villages, where patronal feasts remain the true social calendar of the year.